(a) Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display and a manufacturing method thereof.
(b) Description of Related Art
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are a type of flat panel display (FPD) comprising two display panels on which field generating electrodes are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. A voltage applied to the field generating electrodes generates an electric field on the liquid crystal layer, and the orientation of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined and the polarization of incident light is controlled through the generated electric field to display an image.
Among the LCDs, a vertical alignment (VA) mode LCD, which aligns LC molecules such that the long axes of the LC molecules are perpendicular to the panels in the absence of an electric field, exhibits a high contrast ratio and a wide reference viewing angle.
Also, LCDs may be categorized depending on a light source. For example, a transmissive (backlit) LCD displays images using an inner light source, a reflective LCD displays images using natural light from the outside, and a transflective LCD includes a reflective region and a transmissive region as a combination of the backlit LCD and the reflective LCD.
The transflective LCD operates in a backlit mode (transmission mode) in which images are displayed by using an internal light source of the LCD in a dark area where there is insufficient external light, and operates in a reflective mode in which images are displayed by reflecting the external light in an environment with high intensity external illumination.
The LCD includes switching elements connected to each pixel electrode and a plurality of signal lines such as gate lines and data lines to apply voltages to the pixel electrodes by controlling the switching elements. The gate lines transmit gate signals generated by a gate driving circuit, the data lines transmit data voltages generated by a data driving circuit, and the switching elements transmit the data voltages to the pixel electrodes according to the gate signals.
In one configuration, the gate driving circuit may be formed with the same process as when the switching elements of the pixels are integrated on the display panel, and the pixels are arranged in a transverse horizontal direction such that a number of gate lines is increased by three times and the number of the data lines is decreased by one-third thereby reducing the cost while maintaining the same resolution.
However, in a structure including pixel electrodes arranged in the transverse direction, the design of the pixel electrodes is limited in the vertical alignment (VA) mode LCD or the transflective LCD. Also, a kick-back voltage due to a parasitic capacitance between a gate electrode and a source electrode is large according to the change of the gate signals such that the display characteristics are deteriorated.